On the Analekta Label CD where Mathieu's PC No. 4 is found, this interesting story regarding PC No. 4 appears on the insert:
'Let's go back in time a little. On September 21, 2005 at André-Mathieu Hall in Laval, Quebec, Alain Lefèvre was performing the Concerto de Québec for the Orchestre symphonique de Laval's season opener. After the concert, as the audience was leaving, a couple lingered behind, the woman apparently wanting a word with Alain Lefèvre. With much emotion, she told him she knew André Mathieu, and that she was even his last sweetheart. The woman then handed him a bag, telling him it should rightly be his. Alain asked for her address and phone number so he could thank her, but her companion, ill at ease, led her away and put an end to the encounter. In the bag, between two sheets of brown cardboard, were five vinyl records with André Mathieu's handwriting on the center labels. The ten sides contained four works: Laurentienne (1946), the Sonata for violin and piano (1949) and excerpts from the 1949 Trio. The huge surprise, though, was on the last four sides. There could be no mistake–Mathieu's hieroglyphic handwriting read: Piano Concerto No. 4 .
'At first, Lefèvre thought this was yet another version of the Concerto de Québec, also known as the Symphonie romantique, Concerto romantique and Concerto No. 3. So why not another version of the composer's signature work, Mathieu's improvisational genius being so well documented? After having the four sides transcribed, though, it became quite obvious this was a new and unknown work, perhaps one of Mathieu's strongest and boldest. The second movement was later reworked by Mathieu into the Rhapsodie romantique, but the first and third movements revealed what was probably his best work, most representative of his "modern Romanticism."
'Now let's travel even further back in time. In September 1946 André Mathieu set sail for Paris to work with Arthur Honegger. Upon his return to Montreal at the end of the summer of 1947 he undoubtedly already had the Piano Concerto No. 4 in his luggage since he played two of its movements on the October 8 Radio-Canada show Radio-Carabin. He programmed the work at every one of his concerts from 1948 to 1955. It is impossible to know, however, when André Mathieu made those records, especially since he had left other recorded testimonies of the work in the form of individual movements and even an abridged version of the concerto. Putting together these various source materials, Alain Lefèvre asked the composer and conductor Gilles Bellemare to take on the colossal task of putting together a workable score.
'Working from just these tinny sounds, Gilles Bellemare had to take down the entire work in musical dictation, devise a coherent piano score, and deduce what should be allocated to the orchestra or the piano. That done, he had to substitute his own ears for Mathieu's in order to determine the nature of the accompaniment and of the orchestration. Luckily, Bellemare was well acquainted with the composer's compositional and pianistic styles, having previously revised the score of the Rhapsodie romantique and published a new edition of twelve piano pieces by André Mathieu.
'Everything finally fell wonderfully into place so that the three concerts of May 8, 9 and 11, 2008 in Tucson, Arizona were a musical celebration that we can all now share in, thanks to this recording.'
'Let's go back in time a little. On September 21, 2005 at André-Mathieu Hall in Laval, Quebec, Alain Lefèvre was performing the Concerto de Québec for the Orchestre symphonique de Laval's season opener. After the concert, as the audience was leaving, a couple lingered behind, the woman apparently wanting a word with Alain Lefèvre. With much emotion, she told him she knew André Mathieu, and that she was even his last sweetheart. The woman then handed him a bag, telling him it should rightly be his. Alain asked for her address and phone number so he could thank her, but her companion, ill at ease, led her away and put an end to the encounter. In the bag, between two sheets of brown cardboard, were five vinyl records with André Mathieu's handwriting on the center labels. The ten sides contained four works: Laurentienne (1946), the Sonata for violin and piano (1949) and excerpts from the 1949 Trio. The huge surprise, though, was on the last four sides. There could be no mistake–Mathieu's hieroglyphic handwriting read: Piano Concerto No. 4 .
'At first, Lefèvre thought this was yet another version of the Concerto de Québec, also known as the Symphonie romantique, Concerto romantique and Concerto No. 3. So why not another version of the composer's signature work, Mathieu's improvisational genius being so well documented? After having the four sides transcribed, though, it became quite obvious this was a new and unknown work, perhaps one of Mathieu's strongest and boldest. The second movement was later reworked by Mathieu into the Rhapsodie romantique, but the first and third movements revealed what was probably his best work, most representative of his "modern Romanticism."
'Now let's travel even further back in time. In September 1946 André Mathieu set sail for Paris to work with Arthur Honegger. Upon his return to Montreal at the end of the summer of 1947 he undoubtedly already had the Piano Concerto No. 4 in his luggage since he played two of its movements on the October 8 Radio-Canada show Radio-Carabin. He programmed the work at every one of his concerts from 1948 to 1955. It is impossible to know, however, when André Mathieu made those records, especially since he had left other recorded testimonies of the work in the form of individual movements and even an abridged version of the concerto. Putting together these various source materials, Alain Lefèvre asked the composer and conductor Gilles Bellemare to take on the colossal task of putting together a workable score.
'Working from just these tinny sounds, Gilles Bellemare had to take down the entire work in musical dictation, devise a coherent piano score, and deduce what should be allocated to the orchestra or the piano. That done, he had to substitute his own ears for Mathieu's in order to determine the nature of the accompaniment and of the orchestration. Luckily, Bellemare was well acquainted with the composer's compositional and pianistic styles, having previously revised the score of the Rhapsodie romantique and published a new edition of twelve piano pieces by André Mathieu.
'Everything finally fell wonderfully into place so that the three concerts of May 8, 9 and 11, 2008 in Tucson, Arizona were a musical celebration that we can all now share in, thanks to this recording.'